Advocacy & Safety - Be careful out there... 1 in 6 deaths on the roadway is due to cell phone use...

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/highway-deaths-tied-phones-texting-government-hold-distracted/story?id=11681681&cid=yahoo_pitchlist


So-called distracted driving crashes claimed 5,474 lives and led to 448,000 injuries across the country last year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That's one in every six highway deaths.

We always talk about deaths here on A&S, but the reality is a whole lot of injuries also occur... no doubt some of which can change lives.

Just doing a quick extrapolation... if there are 32,000 annual motorist deaths, there are about 2.5 million injured motorists... if 700 cyclists are dying annually... there are perhaps about 56,000 cyclists injured annually. We always talk about deaths... we tend to overlook injuries.

Do us all a favor, and don't talk or text, on 2 or 4 wheels!

Just doing a quick extrapolation... if there are 32,000 annual motorist deaths, there are about 2.5 million injured motorists... if 700 cyclists are dying annually... there are perhaps about 56,000 cyclists injured annually. We always talk about deaths... we tend to overlook injuries.While I appreciate your attempt at extrapolating the number of injuries from the number of deaths, and admit that it's likely pretty accurate for motorists (though one would need to state how serious an injury must be before it's counted), I question the accuracy of extrapolating (mostly) motorist data into cyclist data.

In a car, you tend to be uninjured in most collisions. On a bike, even minor collisions tend to result in injuries.

Ultimately, based on that, I would expect the injured/killed ratio for cyclists to be higher than for motorists. Of course, to actually quantify this qualitative guess would be difficult -- motorist injuries are better reported than cyclist injuries, for example, and ultimately the only thing that's accurately reported is deaths.

While I appreciate your attempt at extrapolating the number of injuries from the number of deaths, and admit that it's likely pretty accurate for motorists (though one would need to state how serious an injury must be before it's counted), I question the accuracy of extrapolating (mostly) motorist data into cyclist data.

In a car, you tend to be uninjured in most collisions. On a bike, even minor collisions tend to result in injuries.

Ultimately, based on that, I would expect the injured/killed ratio for cyclists to be higher than for motorists. Of course, to actually quantify this qualitative guess would be difficult -- motorist injuries are better reported than cyclist injuries, for example, and ultimately the only thing that's accurately reported is deaths.

I tend to agree with you... it was just a shot in the dark at pointing to something that we tend to gloss over due to that lack of reporting. Of course some cyclists also walk away from collisions that could easily be assumed to be life threatening.

and yet another similar story... http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20100923/hl_hsn/textingtakingadeadlytollonroads


THURSDAY, Sept. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Distracted driving fatalities caused by cell phone use and texting soared in the space of three years, according to new U.S. government research released Thursday.

Texting alone caused more than 16,000 deaths in car accidents from 2001 to 2007, the researchers estimated. But auto deaths involving cell phones and texting while driving rose 28 percent in just three years, from 4,572 in 2005 to 5,870 in 2008.

"The increases in distracted driving seem to be largely driven by increased use of cell phones to text," said lead researcher Fernando Wilson, an assistant professor in the School of Public Health at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth.

"Overall use of cell phones have been pretty steady, but texting volumes have increased dramatically in the last few years," he added.

Distracted driving and its deadly toll was the focus of a government summit this week in Washington, D.C., at which officials called for tougher laws to counter the growing trend. They reported that more than 5,000 people were killed last year in distracted driving crashes.

You may be watching out, but is that motorist?

http://www.keepfearalive.com/sitewide/images/rally/stephen_image.jpg

While I appreciate your attempt at extrapolating the number of injuries from the number of deaths, and admit that it's likely pretty accurate for motorists (though one would need to state how serious an injury must be before it's counted), I question the accuracy of extrapolating (mostly) motorist data into cyclist data.

In a car, you tend to be uninjured in most collisions. On a bike, even minor collisions tend to result in injuries.

Ultimately, based on that, I would expect the injured/killed ratio for cyclists to be higher than for motorists. Of course, to actually quantify this qualitative guess would be difficult -- motorist injuries are better reported than cyclist injuries, for example, and ultimately the only thing that's accurately reported is deaths.


All true. Bicyclists are disproportionately injured compared to car drivers but the death rate seems to be in the same ballpark. Makes perfect sense..

Available numbers go like this: About a half million cyclist ER visits per year in the US, and another half million outpatient visits. Among those are about 30 or 40 thousand hospitalizations, sometimes used as a measure of serious injury.

A lot of the ER visits are for minor injuries; the vast majority of minor injuries don't show up in the ER. The overall injury number is unknowable but probably not worth knowing anyway.

Motorists on cellphones are the one thing that concerns me while cycling.

Last week I was at a stop sign waiting for the light, when a young woman pulled up next to me in the right lane. She was about 20 and waved at me. Then we waited. SHE SAW ME, of that I was certain.
While waiting for the light, though, she apparently got a cell call and responded - when the light changed.
Thus distracted, she gunned it and right crossed me, still yakking away as she sped off.

I saw it coming, cause I anticipate that sort of thing. I let her pass before I got on the pedals and she went on, either clueless or too late to do anything about it.

Yeah, cell phones are a new dimension to the cyclists world. They are real game changers; in a game that has remained pretty much the same for a long time.

http://www.keepfearalive.com/sitewide/images/rally/stephen_image.jpg

Yeah, I was going to go, but I am FLYING to Hawaii instead. I'll be clutching my seat the whole time watching for terrorists.

Anybody know how many of those distracted driving accidents were single vehicle?

171232

Cell phone use is way, way up over the last twenty years, car crashes are flat. (http://jalopnik.com/5644967/texting-and-driving-may-not-lead-to-more-crashes) People are just as distracted as ever, no more, no less. Of course, be careful out there.

171232

Cell phone use is way, way up over the last twenty years, car crashes are flat. (http://jalopnik.com/5644967/texting-and-driving-may-not-lead-to-more-crashes) People are just as distracted as ever, no more, no less. Of course, be careful out there.

Car crashes are flat, but driving mileage has gone down... as have motorist deaths... so fewer motorists are dying, due to safer cars, but those fewer motorists are still getting into the same amount of crashes... Why?

While I appreciate your attempt at extrapolating the number of injuries from the number of deaths, and admit that it's likely pretty accurate for motorists (though one would need to state how serious an injury must be before it's counted), I question the accuracy of extrapolating (mostly) motorist data into cyclist data.


This is true.



In a car, you tend to be uninjured in most collisions.


You also tend not to die!



On a bike, even minor collisions tend to result in injuries.

Ultimately, based on that, I would expect the injured/killed ratio for cyclists to be higher than for motorists.

You can't say that. Because both injuries *and* deaths are reduced for motorists compared a cyclist in a similar accident... and because accidents tend not be similar anyway.